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Electrical Renovation
Electrical, you ain't so scary. Or are you? Demo a wall and you've unleashed seemingly miles of cobwebbed BX cable from another century. Or just try to find all the services contained on a single circuit. Okay, it can be confusing. New-construction electrical is one thing: you've got a blank slate on which to create your electrical works of art. But remodeling electrical means you're faced with a previous owner's work. Some people might reduce the following tricks to mere commonsense. So be it. That's only from people who already know a thing or two about electrical--contractors, electricians, and in-the-know DIYers. But I think that if you are new to DIY electrical, some of these knowledge-nuggets are worthy of being called hacks, tricks, tips, and the like: Need a Receptacle? Look on Other Side of the Wall It may be a trick of visual perception, but we tend to think room-by-room. Only when you start really digging in by remodeling and taking down a few walls do you realize that interior walls are largely illusory things. So when you're looking to add a receptacle in an interior wall, you'll naturally look along the wall at existing receptacles. If you're already got a circuit going, why not just tack on one more outlet? Sometimes this just isn't possible. Try looking in the adjoining room and its receptacles. It's an easy thing to continue a general receptacle circuit into a different room, on the other side of the wall. Just make sure you're not mixing different kinds of circuits. For example, if the circuit in the other room is a lighting circuit, you will have troubles (not to mention code issues) if you tack on a general receptacle. Move Ceiling Lights Without Running More Wires Sometimes ceiling lights aren't where you want them to be. But you'll find that you can move a ceiling light surprisingly far without adding more wire or running a new circuit. The electrical runs in your attic often have a great range of motion. It's possible to move backwards and to the side of the run. And in some cases, you will find some extra wire that will even allow you to advance the light somewhat. Open Up Closed Electrical Boxes to Add Recetacles, Lights These are easy to miss: electrical boxes that are covered up and often painted over. They are such a part of the landscape of our lives that we barely notice them anymore. But they usually have live power in them: that's the reason for the cover. It might be that a fixture was decommissioned and taken out of service. Or it might be a splice in a long electrical run. Covered electrical boxes are valuable resources for live wires. Use Old Work Electrical Boxes as Needed New construction electrical boxes are the kind that get nailed onto framing studs. But what about when you're remodeling and you've got wallboard in the way? You can't exactly crawl in there and nail up a box. That's what old work electrical boxes are for. Call them what you may--remodeling electrical boxes, old-construction boxes--they all do basically the same thing: tack onto the wall covering rather than the studs.